NE on server?

[bplewe]

Has anyone attempted to put the NE data on a vector GIS server (ArcSDE, WFS, etc.)? This seems like a logical next step for delivery, especially for people who only need to use it occasionally and don’t want to download the whole thing (especially the image layers). Since the open source programs support PostGIS and WFS/WCS, and Manifold and MaPublisher support SDE as well, such a thing should be widely useful.

I am planning on putting it up on my PostGIS/ArcSDE/ArcGIS Server box for my own use. I suppose I could open it up to the public if people are interested, but I don’t think I have the horsepower to handle a lot of traffic.

Anyone interested?

[Nathaniel]

@Brandon: Bjørn has put together a simple browser for Natural Earth here: http://blog.thematicmapping.org/2010/01/natural-earth-browser.html

There is also a simple Google Earth version out there.

No one has make it available as a WFS/WCS. It would be great to have it up there in that form!

Jill also points out a version that allows SHPs or at least vector (eps,pdf,svg) output of selected view would be a boon.

If you figure out a solution we could ramp up no the horsepower, ideally with open source tools or ability to scale the $ version.

_Nathaniel

[bplewe]

Okay, I’ve put a GIS server together using Natural Earth Data. You are welcome to use these, but I should warn you that this may not be the highest performance, and I can’t continually support it, so consider it a proof of concept. Here are the connection parameters:

RASTER DATA:

ArcGIS Server: http://carto.byu.edu:8399/arcgis/services

(there are a lot of layers there: the one you want is ne_raster)

WMS: http://carto.byu.edu:8399/arcgis/services/ne_raster/MapServer/WMSServer?request=getcapabilities

(some software prefers you leave off everything after the ?)

This is one service, but all the image types are in there as layers that can be turned on and off. The group layers for each image type are set to automatically switch between the three resolutions at 1:10M and 1:22M (which looked right on screen resolution; probably should be higher thresholds for print).

VECTOR DATA:

ArcSDE: host=carto.byu.edu, service=5152, database=earth, username=earth, password=nacis

PostGIS: host=carto.byu.edu, port=5432, database=earth, uesrname=earth, password=nacis

WFS: http://carto.byu.edu:8399/arcgis/services/NaturalEarth/GeoDataServer/WFSServer?request=getcapabilities

(as with WMS, some software wants the part after the ?, some doesn’t)

I have organized these by scale and type (physical/cultural), which you can see in the SDE and PostGIS interfaces, but is hard to decipher in WFS. I have altered the datasets a bit: I merged all the boundaries (use the feature_class to separate them), and I merged all the graticules (there is a bunch of boolean fields to filter out the various intervals). I also slightly renamed a couple layers, so they’d make sense to me.

I have tested this in ArcGIS 9.3.1 and QuantumGIS. If anyone wants to test it in any other software, let me know if it works. Also let me know what you think of the performance (I assume it’s slow).

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